


hold this thread

by sullypants



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Clothing, F/M, Fluff, and
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:47:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23361964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sullypants/pseuds/sullypants
Summary: Jughead has historically found spending too much mental energy on clothing himself to be an unnecessary effort.But Betty? Betty seems to have something to wear for every eventuality.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Comments: 34
Kudos: 93
Collections: 7th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees





	hold this thread

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stillscape](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillscape/gifts).



> with thanks to stillscape, for her thoughts, the prompt ("fashion"), and the title (a Weezer lyric.)

Courting Betty Cooper is like falling asleep: it happens so slowly he doesn’t notice it, and then suddenly—she walks into a room and it’s like his day turns around. 

And Jughead _does_ think of it as courtship. Betty’s different from the handful of random dates he’s been on in his life, and _certainly_ different from the one relationship of long-standing he’s had. Sabrina had taken the lead in nearly all aspects of how they ended up together, and for a long time, Jughead saw that as ideal. He thinks relationships probably aren’t meant to be compared with one another. No man ever steps in the same river twice, after all. 

Betty is…pretty amazing. She’s intelligent, and thoughtful. She’s seemingly innately kind, and Jughead likes that about her (he might _love_ that about her, but he’s trying to give himself space to figure that out.) 

Even the things he typically finds infuriating in other people are merely annoyances when manifested in Betty; a deal-breaker in one person is suddenly a decent trade-off. He gets to have all of Betty; she’s willing to have all of him. A compulsion against leaving a dirty dish in a sink for more than five minutes at a time is the smallest molehill in comparison. 

.

Jughead has historically found spending too much mental energy on clothing himself to be an unnecessary effort. He’s worn a serviceable uniform of jeans and t-shirts for years, and eventually made necessary allowances for being an adult who works in an office space, albeit a casual one. 

Betty? Betty seems to have something to wear for every eventuality. Jughead’s shocked at the depths of her wardrobe—even though, having himself seen the inside of her bedroom on _numerous_ occasions ( _no_ , he hasn’t counted; fuck Reggie for even asking, and that idiocy), it does not appear to take up much more space than her closet (small, even for a studio apartment) and the chest of drawers that sits opposite her bed. 

Compared to the other women in his life—a small circle, admittedly, that includes his actual sister (a steady rotation of leather and jean jackets that is implausibly inexhaustible) and his pseudo sister-in-law Veronica (literally everything, an infinite array of designer fashion, he’s not sure he’s ever seen her wear the same thing twice)—Betty would appear to own _less_ clothing.

But he and Betty have known one another for about a year—casually, as friends, then as something more—before he finds himself even thinking on this topic. It’s not until they’ve been dating for a few weeks and he finds himself in her bedroom for the first time that he notices this, yet another way Betty seems to be a master of all situations.

But then, he gets distracted. 

Before his brain catches up with him, Betty’s pulled her dress up and over her head and she’s standing there in a bra with some sort of colorful abstract floral on a black field that Jughead can’t put a name to before she—well, Jughead’s a gentleman. He couldn’t put words to it even if he were that kind of person.

.

He forgets the subject entirely for a few weeks, until he finds himself alongside Betty, attending after-work drinks with Archie and Veronica. They’ve spent some time together as a quartet, but this is the first time he’s ceded to Veronica’s pick of venue. 

Of- _fucking-_ course Veronica picks a place with a dress code.

Jughead’s forced into borrowing one of the blazers the club keeps in reserve for this very eventuality. It’s a little broad in the shoulders, and he feels a bit like he’s thirteen again and attending a bar mitzvah—but at least he’s lucky enough to have had a client meeting earlier, so he’s already in a button-down shirt. Small wins. 

Betty, however. 

Betty works in a non-profit organization that is just as casual as Jughead’s, and she _didn’t_ have a client meeting today. He’s a bit concerned at what the club might have for her, but when she swans in a few minutes after him, she’s in the same outfit she was wearing when he’d kissed her goodbye and handed her a thermos of coffee that morning as she left his apartment.

But it might as well be night and day for all the majesty she seems to inject it with. 

_What’s different,_ he wonders? She’s taken off her cardigan, and looks to be wearing a swipe of color on her lips that wasn’t there this morning, but it’s...more substantial than just attitude, right? Betty’s confident, certainly; but she has as many insecurities as he does, if different ones. It’s something they’d bonded over. They balance each other out. 

.

Later that evening, back at his apartment, comfortably slumped onto his couch and halfway through an episode of _Fleabag_ (a rewatch for them both), he finally thinks to ask:

“Did you bring a change of clothes for drinks?”

Under his arm, Betty turns her head to meet his eyes, eyebrows raised. 

“No, I was here this morning, remember? This is the outfit I brought over last night.”

He nods. “Right, right. You just looked a little different.”

She cocks her head. He thinks to backtrack.

“No—no, you looked like you, you looked nice. But, I dunno. You looked...fancier.”

Betty squints at him and laughs. “ _Okay_. Sure.” She stretches her neck to give him a peck on the lips. 

Things escalate. _Fleabag_ is paused. Shirts are discarded.

“This is nice,” he says, running his finger along the edge of the deep red satin of Betty’s bra.

She blushes. “Thanks. It’s Stella McCartney. I got it on sale, actually,” she adds with a pleased wiggle of her eyebrows.

“I don’t know who that is,” he huffs with a laugh; she joins. She wraps her arms around his shoulders and rolls them over.

“Daughter of Paul.”

Jughead’s eyebrows raise, but he’s still looking at her chest.

“Really?” 

“Mhm,” she responds, and then they stop talking. 

\---

The next morning, a Saturday, Jughead shuffles into his own kitchen, eyes scrunched shut against the morning light. He grumbles out a _good morning_ , leaning down to plant a kiss on Betty’s cheek, and reaches for the carafe of coffee she’s already brewed. 

Once he’s taken his first sip, he feels a little more human. It gives him the chance to finally look at Betty. She’s in leggings and a cropped sports bra, hair tamed into her ponytail. There’s a slight sheen on her cheeks, but it’s subtle.

“Did you _run_?” he asks her.

She looks up from the newspaper ( _Did she buy the paper?_ ), takes a sip of her own coffee. 

“Yep!” She nods toward the oven. “I left a plate warming for you.”

Jughead opens the oven to find a plate from his own cupboard, laden with bacon and at least three fried eggs (over-hard), and two pieces of toast cut into triangles. There are home fries, too. Jughead doesn’t recall buying potatoes. 

Taking the plate, he sits next to Betty at his tiny two-person kitchen table. She smiles at him, and shifts the paper slightly to make space for him. He’s hungry, but for a moment he’s struck. He stares at her.

She seems to sense his gaze, and looks up from the paper again, a question in her eyes. 

His own flick down to her athleticwear, to his warm and waiting plate, and back up to her face. He smiles at her, shakes his head, _nothing_. 

She smiles back, holds his gaze for a moment, and seems to be saying something without words. She turns her gaze back to the newspaper, with just the hint of a smile in her eyes. 

.

  
Betty has... _style_. Style doesn’t seem so frivolous to Jughead. He can appreciate an aesthetic.

**Author's Note:**

> ty, come again!


End file.
